Jeg poster her en, efter min mening god, analyse af filmen Punch-Drunk
Love, som er blevet postet i et forum på dahf.dk:
http://www.danskhjemmebioforum.dk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5982
PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE ANALYSIS
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I've finished watching patch-drunk love for the first time the other
night. At the end I knew that it was an excellent movie but I couldn't
really understand why. Sure the directing is great but there was more to
it than that. Then I realized that throughout the entire movie I knew
exactly how the hero, Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) felt like. I have
completely sympathized with that anti-hero character and his problems. A
bit disturbing, because Barry is a very troubled person, and I don’t
think I’m that eccentric. That is because Barry is an exaggerated
example of a person with whom I share some of these mental problems.
Mainly, Barry is shy and introverted, which means he has a very low
esteem of himself. This primary problem causes other complications in
his life, such as being Paranoid. If you watch the movie again you will
see that almost in every single scene, Barry is looking around to see if
someone is watching or listening to him. Barry is also an inhibited man;
he doesn’t do some things which he considers out of the line (“I don't
do that. I don't do things like that” Elizabeth: “You don't do anything,
why are you being scared?”). Barry is an intelligent person, and is
aware of his mental problems. He has an ideal of how he should be, and
this causes him to hate himself (“I don't like the way I am sometimes,
Can you help me?”). All of these mental complications generate another
problem, which is without a doubt the main problem in this film and of
which the entire plot is built around: The “Divided worlds” syndrome
(Naturally I came up with that name, because it’s not a famous mental
problem like all the others. Actually, until watching this movie, I have
never seen this problem brought up anywhere in the media, Except for
Seinfeld’s “Colliding worlds theory”).
Divided worlds syndrome means that a person, who is introverted and
uncertain of himself, isolates the different aspects of his life. Doing
so makes him more able to handle with his daily problems. Barry is too
weak and vulnerable to handle all of his problems at once, so he divided
his entire life to little “Worlds”:
Family life
Work life
Naughty Sex life
Love life
Personal Life
These are the worlds described in this film and whatever happens, he
DOESN’T ever want to mix them together. Failing to do so gets him very
frustrated. This results in his violent outbreaks, described along the
film. When a mixture happens, he directs his anger to the person who is
responsible for that mixture (His sister, Mattress-Man, Himself…). This
is a serious emotional problem because sooner or later, his separated
worlds must collide. This movie is exactly that; it shows us what
happens when Barry’s worst nightmare comes to life. I’ll describe here
the events where there were mixtures between the isolated aspects of his
life, and always, the violent outbreak that immediately follows it.
Barry is a manager of a novelty Ware house in LA. He has couple of
workers under him and is basically doing OK. The movie starts when Barry
is at work and his sisters constantly call and interrupt him during a
meeting. We can see that it troubles him, but not so much. The phone is
as easy way for worlds to mix since that he is the only one able to hear
the other side (The phone is a repeating motif along this movie).
Elizabeth, One of his 7 sisters comes to his work place and suggests on
bringing her friend over to the family dinner that night. He tells her
that he doesn’t want that because “she will be looking” at him. He
doesn’t want his Family Life to have ANY relationship with his Love
Life. This would make him nervous. He doesn’t want to come to that
dinner anyhow. When he finally arrives there we can see that he is very
disturbed even before he goes inside. That is because:
* There are many people there (he has 7 sisters)
* His sisters have husbands which mix his family life with complete
strangers
* His sisters constantly ask invasive things about his other “worlds”
For him this entire event is a catastrophe, no wonder he didn’t want to
go there in the first place. The idea of his sister bringing her friend
to meet him is a recipe for disaster.
With that in mind, as soon as he walks in the room they immediately ask
him if he remembers the traumatic “GayBoy” incident. This hurts him
because they mix personal, history life with his family life. He is shy
and doesn’t want to discuss about personal outbreaks he once had. He
tells them “I don’t remember”. When they ask him if he is gay and why is
he wearing the blue suit, he answers the same. They ask about his
personal life and it gets him burning up inside until he finally
explodes and breaks couple of windows.
Afterwards that he talks to the dentist. He can trust him because the
law forces him to. He tells him the he doesn’t like himself sometimes
and asks for help. We see his desperate search for trust in people.
The blue suite is quite interesting. It doesn’t show how he bought it,
but we actually know. The other day he was probably thinking to himself
that he is not happy with his life and that he wants to change. He
thinks that buying this new suit will transform him to something better.
The only problem with the suit is that it is exposed to other “worlds”.
When his sisters ask him about the suit with disapproval it hurts him
and lowers his already fragile self esteem.
The same goes with his pudding project. He has a plan to buy as many of
the “Healthy Foods” product as possible and receive Frequent Flyer miles
as a bonus. He is extremely proud of his little scheme. He doesn’t want
to reveal his idea with the other people in his life because he is
afraid they will mock him. He wants to wait until his idea works and
only then to reveal it to the other Worlds. Unfortunately, in this case
as well, he needs a place to store all the pudding and puts it in his
warehouse. This exposes the entire project and people constantly ask him
“what’s all the pudding for?”. He doesn’t want to tell them, it’s a
personal matter so he replies again with “I don’t know”.
Each one of us has his own Very private sex related issues that, from
one hand doesn’t want anyone else to know about, but on the other hand,
sex usually involves other people (this way or another). Sometimes this
makes us do silly naughty irrational things. The LAST thing, though,
that any of us would like, is to make this very private sex world clash
with the others. This horrific nightmare is exactly what had happened to
poor old Barry who wanted to do something… naughty one night.
Barry calls to the sex hotline and gives them all of his private
information, because he expects them to give him the full
confidentiality he deserves. He wanted to have an anonymous quick sex
call but instead, he ends up revealing himself to the deceptive phone
girl. He only asked her that the actual girl wouldn’t know his real name.
The next day he finds out that the phone sex girl is blackmailing him.
She tells him that she knows everything about him (where he lives, works
and credit card number). This makes him very nervous because he realizes
that his private one night sex “world” is going to brutally interfere
with his other worlds. He tries to ignore her and hope the whole issue
will quietly go away. That day at the office is yet another awful
experience when his sister brings her friend to Barry’s workplace while
the sex phone girl is threatening him on the phone. In other words:
Family Life (his sister) mixes with Work Life (the office and workers)
mixes with Love Life (his sister’s friend) mixes with Personal Life
(“What’s all that pudding?”) Mixes with Naughty Sex Life (life
threatening phone sex girl) = One Horrible Nightmare to poor Barry who
desperately wants to get the hell out of there. With the tensed
background music, and all the things happening so fast there is only one
thing that kept our hero sane: his Love life (his sister’s friend: Lena
Leonard). This one little thing is what ultimately fixes Barry’s life.
It’s the love that made him go through all of his crap in one piece.
For some odd reason, Lena is so in love with Barry that she doesn’t care
about his peculiar behavior. As the movie goes on Barry trust her with
information he wouldn’t simply give to anyone else. That is because true
loves mean trust, and to a paranoid person such as Barry, this is the
ultimate confidentiality he was always looking for. Even though, He had
few problems accepting it along the way. At their first date Lena asked
him about the “GayBoy” incident his sister told her about, where he
supposedly threw a hammer through a door. This made him very mad,
because his sister (Family Life) told Lena (Love Life) about an old
embarrassing event (Personal Life)= Another breakout, this time at the
restaurant’s bathroom. He broke the entire place and was politely asked
to leave.
Later that evening, it is showed clearly that the couple is in love.
Lena told Barry that she is going to Hawaii that weekend and told him
that he can come visit her there.
Later that night, Private “Anonymous” Naughty Sex Life turns very real
as a group of young thugs force Barry to draw $500 from the automated
teller machine. They hit him and take his money. Barry didn’t want to
call the police, probably because he wanted to keep it a private matter.
Instead he decided to do the only mature thing: Buy allot of Pudding and
run away to Hawaii.
He decides to consciously Mix his Work Life (worker) with his Personal
Life (pudding) and take his worker to a pudding buying spree. Only when
he comes back from shopping he finds out that his plan had failed, and
the Mixture results in yet another breakout. Soon afterwards he pulls
himself together, and tells his worker that he is going to Hawaii
nevertheless.
As he reaches Hawaii he has ANOTHER breakout. He calls his sister and
asks her where Lena is staying. His intrusive sister wants to know WHY
he needs this information. He doesn’t want to tell her that he is in
Hawaii and that he loves Lena because he doesn’t want to mix his Family
Life (sister) with Love Life (Lena) And Personal life (running away to
Hawaii). His annoying sister demands an explanation that will force him
to mix his “Worlds”, this frustration results in the Breakout where he
yells at her and call her nasty names.
Later Lena and Barry meet each other and spend the night together. The
following morning we see that Lena really understands Barry’s fears:
when his sister calls her, Lena doesn’t reveal any information about
him. We can really see these two fit together. She respects his need for
privacy and he can trust her for that.
The biggest and most amazing breakout happens as soon as they get back
from Hawaii. The group of thugs from the phonesex Life hit straight into
Barry and Lena’s vehicle. This is only a symbol of the biggest Mixture
yet, between Naughty one-night Sex Life and so precious Love Life. The
fact that the horrible nightmare harms his true love causes Barry to
Breakout, for the first time, in a helpful matter. He gets out of the
car and beat the crap out of the thugs. He doesn’t stop there; the
feelings inside him are too strong. He seeks the man responsible for
this nightmare and finds him at a furniture store in Utah and confronts
him once and for all.
If it wasn’t for Lena, he wouldn’t have got to that man and beat up the
thugs. It was his love for Lena that made him so prevailing (“I Have so
much Strength in me, you have no idea. I have a Love in my life; it
makes me stronger than anything you can imagine”). That really sums up
the whole movie. If it wasn’t for love, poor Barry would have probably
been dead.
The movie ends when Barry comes rushing to Lena’s apartment with the
harmonium and tells her the truth about the Sex-phone incident. This
completes a transformation in Barry. By the end of the movie Barry tells
Lena, His Love Life, about ALL the Worlds in his life. He
conscientiously mixed his Love life with all the other aspects in his
life, which means that she, to him is as important as he is to himself.
In other words they are one (that’s why he brings her his Harmonium) and
Barry had finally found a mature way to solve his “Divided Worlds” problem.
This concludes my interpretation of “Punch-Drunk Love”. This movie
without a doubt has entered my Top-Ten list, for me it’s a masterpiece.
That’s also explains why some people wouldn’t ever understand this
movie; In order to fully realize the complexity of Barry, you must BE a
shy and introverted person. This movie is simply NOT VIEWABLE to a
self-confident, shallow person.
Paul Thomas Anderson is a true genius to write this movie (not to speak
about the excellent directing and camera shots). He must have written it
about himself, otherwise I can’t understand how he got the character
right as perfect as he did. These mental problems are too far
complicated for someone else to write about them. Adam Sandler is also
unbelievably talented in this movie. The same explanation goes to him as
well. He must have these same problems as Barry in order to play SO WELL
as he did. We already know about Adam’s violent outbreaks in movies ever
since “Happy Gilmore”. I saw his new “Anger Management” the other day
and also felt a tad sympathized with his character (although there is
truly no way to compare it to punch-drunk love).
About the Harmonium, it’s a metaphor of some kind. I didn’t really want
to examine it too closely but I think that it goes something like this:
Life gives an instrument which sometimes doesn’t work too well. One day
you better get some guts, pick it up and examine it. From the start you
have a clear ideal of how it should sound like, but it’s not that easy
to actually play it. You need tools along the way that will help you fix
it and practice on it until finally, you have the ability to play the
exact harmony that you have always wanted.
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/David